The statutory right of consumers to have an electricity connection, subject to regulations, and the necessity of addressing the concerns of the electricity department and the interest of the consumers in providing service connections.

JUDGMENT :

A.P. Sahi, J.

(Prayer: Appeal filed under Clause 15 of the Letters Patent to set aside the order dated 28.8.2020 made in W.P.No.8171 of 2020 and thus render justice and direct respondents 4 to 6 to provide forthwith single phase service connections as prayed for in W.P.No.8171 of 2020.)

1. Heard Mr.Srinath Srideven, learned counsel for the appellant and Mr.P.R.Dhilip Kumar, learned Standing Counsel, for the respondents.

2. The appellant is a Developer who has set up a Housing Colony and the dispute giving rise to the present controversy is with regard to LT service connection to the individual flats in the housing colony developed by the appellant. It is not in dispute that it was developed in several phases and in the first phase, single phase connections have been provided to 604 flats.

3. It is with regard to the second phase of supply of electricity that led to the filing of the writ petition giving rise to this appeal, wherein a challenge was raised to the letters issued by the Superintending Engineer, the Executive Engineer and the Assistant Engineer, informing the appellant that unless the appellant provides space for setting up of a sub-station, it would not be possible to accept the request of the appellant for extending power connections to the flats, which have been constructed and for which the conditions as stipulated in the Board Proceedings No.481, dated 11.09.2017, are to be complied with.

4. A counter-affidavit was filed before the learned single Judge on behalf of the respondents relying on Regulation 29 (12) (ii) of the Tamil Nadu Electricity Distribution Code, 2004, contending that a 400 sq.m. of land is required for setting up of a 33/11 KV sub-station in order to provide 3 Phase electricity connection, as the requirement now, according to Clause 5 (c) of the Board Proceedings dated 11.09.2017 envisages setting up of a sub-station of 33/11 KV in the project premises, which is the only way to feed the project site. This has been done on the basis of certain calculations. Regulation 29(12)(ii) is extracted hereinunder:-

“12. For any building/premises requiring LT service connection (s) having either (a) total floor area of 900 square meter and above (excluding the stilt floor/basement floor) or (b) the total demand of all the LT services in the building exceeds 150 KW.

(i) ...

(ii) Space as per the norms to be specified by the Commission shall be allotted for establishment of a sub station/switching station in places of group housing/commercial complex where the total demand exceeds 5 MVA. These areas shall be specifically shown in the plan.”

5. The respondents took a stand that according to their calculation, the total load reaches to a stage which crosses 5 MVA and according to the project requirement and the number of flats, it works out to 6.48 MVA. Hence, the land requirement should be fulfilled and only then the sub station can be set up so as to provide electricity connection to the flats.

6. It is also the stand of the respondents that on the directions of this Court, the possibility of exploring supply of single phase connection was considered and since there are only two sub-stations in and around the locality that are already saturated upto the peak point, there is no possibility of supplying single phase electricity to the project. Thus, again it has been reiterated that the matter can be resolved only if 400 sq.m. of land is provided by the appellant to enable the electricity department to set up a sub station of 33/11 KVA.

7. The proceedings dated 11.09.2017 in its entirety are extracted hereinunder:-

“Proceedings:

Instruction on assessing the total demand of the group housing commercial complex was issued vide reference (1) cited, wherein, it was specified that the developer or owner of the group housing/commercial complex has to earmark the land for installing the Substation/Distribution T